Fidelis Proditionem
by YourMCee
Summary: An alternate version of Season 4. When Dean is given a free ticket out of Hell, the Winchesters believe they've finally caught their first lucky break. But with Dean haunted by his memories of Hell, claiming to have visits from an Angel of the Lord, and foretelling every case they work as part of the apocalypse, Sam is left to wonder if Dean came back with his sanity intact...


Dean Winchester hated being unprepared.

Of course, Dead hated a lot of things- loud assholes in bars, dents in his Impala, airplanes, witches, overcooked burgers, demons that just _would not _die- but being prepared was something that fell entirely on his shoulders, generally under the "you fucked up" category. Remembering the times when he'd been caught with his pants down always brought a scowl to his face. There was the 'surprise' werewolf at what seemed to be an obvious wendigo case, and his arsenal of silver bullets was left conveniently in the trunk half a mile away from the secluded forest. There was also the skinchanger who showed up in the middle of a double poltergeist job, and what sort of _idiot _would bring a silver knife for a couple of poltergeists to fling around at you? Then, of course, there were the oh-so many times a house haunted by some generic vengeful spirit was just impossible void of salt in any shape or just plain pissed him off- he shouldn't have to carry a couple of kilos of the stuff everywhere he went. Salt should just be a commodity in every household.

As a result of this hatred, whenever Dean was forced to face an unknown foe, he tried to cover all of his bases.

That was exactly what he and Bobby were doing in the dark of the abandoned warehouse they had commandeered on the edge of town. They had spent the last two hours painting every sigil and symbol they knew of on the walls and ceiling- a very pain-staking process when Dean was on the ladder and Bobby had the perfectionist's eye for detail that he did. Their weapons of choice laid on a long table in the centre of the room- rock-salt filled shotguns, silver bullets and blades, regular bullet and blades, iron rods, holy water, and even a few choice wooden stakes. Every weapon or tool that they could think of to use against some unnatural being laid before them, and still Dean could not shake the feeling that they were waiting in a trap and unprepared for the fight.

He could only hope that maybe Bobby felt differently. Then he could just tell himself that he was imagining the horrid feeling tugging at his nerves.

It did not seem like life was capable of sending them straight pitches anymore. Dean has just been resurrected from _Hell. _That alone automatically meant powerful things were at work, and likely not the good kind either. Actually, Dean did not know of anything good that fell under both the "powerful" and "thing" categories.

Hunters had been around long enough to know that there is no such thing as a free lunch, and so Dean's 'miraculous' rise from the dead had zero possibility of being a 'no-strings-attached' sort of deal. As far as Dean could tell, the best case scenario would be that it as a temporary fix, , and he could look forward to an eternity in hell after a year or less. The worst-case scenario seemed to be bound only by the extent of imagination… the phrase "fate worse than hell" kept returning to him like some acid-coated boomerang, never far away in his mind.

But the monster which held Dean's contract - or whatever the hell it was - had not yet presented itself entirely. There had been numerous close shaves, complete with bleeding eardrums, but now Dean was suspecting that they were not as random and pointless as they seemed. Either this high-power thing was incredibly patient and cautious (_about as likely as Hell freezing over) _or a trap was being set. Something was definitely after him, and so he was not going to just wander around blindly until that something pounced on him. If there was going to be a confrontation of an unknown nature with God-knows-what, he at least wanted it to be on his turf, his terms, and the ability to pre-prepare. That is, prepare as much as was possible for a faceless foe.

If only that were the end of his problems. If Dean had any glimmer of optimism that everything would turn out alright, the back of his mind cast a large shadow to hide its feeble light- namely the shadow of his younger brother. For however long Dean had been away - _Four months? A year? Two? _The time seemed insignificant in comparison - his brother seemed to have changed into an entirely different person. It seemed like an eternity since he'd seen him last, and yet he couldn't forget that awkward giant from his memories, still ignorant about so many things in life, always wanting to do things the smooth way, helping everyone they could. After such a long time away, there was a cold and unfamiliar coating around the Sammy he once knew, hiding the optimism and warm demeanour underneath the surface Dean could only think of as mirror-like. He was positive that underneath all of the frigid layers, he could find his old brother, but he was also certain that there would be a fair share of secrets hidden in between. And if they were anything like the secrets Dean kept, digging them up would be just as ill-advised as it was imperative.

But it was not the time to be worrying about Sam. Dean had to remind himself of that several times as he waited for fate to come knocking. But as the hours crawled by one after another, he struggled more and more to keep the thoughts away from the brother he vowed to protect- and the sickening thoughts that his absence had forced such a drastic transformation in the boy.

It didn't help that Bobby had never been good at small talk.

"So you, uh… sure you don't remember anythin'?"

"Yeah." A complete lie, but telling the truth was certainly not an option. The mind-over-matter-over-mind-over-mind battles seemed best left repressed for the moment. The eleventh hour was not the time to be having a sit-down with Dr. Phil.

"Not a single memory of how you got out?"

"Like I said- nothing." Dean feigned a sarcastic smile, "Just 'Good morning sunshine.'"

That one was true, at least. Nothing he knew of was capable of something so heavy-duty…. and certainly nothing that had ever left a mark like the print on his left shoulder. At least they could suspect something humanoid based on that, but it hardly narrowed the field. He gave a conscious flex and roll of his muscles as he thought about the brand, considering the strange tenderness in the tissue that he could not call familiar.

"Is that thing botherin' you?" Bobby raised an eyebrow at the action.

"Nah." That one fell in the grey area of lying. "Just thinking… what on Earth has the juice to pull this sort of trick? What are the chances that we even stand half a chance against this bastard? Even the goddamned demons are scared of this thing."

Bobby gave a heavy sigh. "It's going to be a new one in my books, that's for sure. There has been one other thing that I've know to spook demons like this."

Despite a better notion not to, Dean felt his hope raised a little. "Oh yeah? What was that?"

"Us."

Dean laughed, but he felt that his confidence threatened to shatter entirely at the joke. "So are you sure you did this summoning spell correctly?"

The glare he was given definitely wasn't meant as a joke.

"Okay, okay, just asking… touchy touchy… it just seems to be taking a while for this guy to show up, is all."

"Don't ask me what's up. You're the one who said he was looking for you, and now we should have big neon signs. If he's not coming now, I'd say-"

But Dean never heard what Bobby would have said.

Instead, his eardrums shattered from the all-encompassing screech that sent him to his knees. He heard the roof above him rumble and shake from some unseen power, and turned his head to see Bobby unconscious on the ground.

_Oh that's just perfect. _The thing finally decided to show up, and now Dean was without backup. He couldn't hep but curse himself if he ended up dying because he was suspicious of Sam and didn't have the balls to trust him. Death by spite.

His ears were still ringing endlessly, making any attempts at thinking clearly futile, but his instincts seemed to have been left unscathed. He lurched to his feet with his vision swimming before him, and grabbed the salt-filled shotgun from the table, spinning around to meet his visitor. Overhead, the low-hanging lights began to shatter one at a time, showering shards of broken glass in the warehouse like some sort of bloody baptism. Dean ducked and covered his face from the glass and sparks, but not before noticing the destruction's path, starting from the main entrance to the south, and progressing in a straight line from there to the centre of the building.

_Got you, you son of a bitch. _Dean rose to his feet again, standing ready to shoot at the southern doors. Through squinted eyes, he saw the door peeled open by an invisible force, the wind outside picking up on the tails of his jacket from either side. Electricity crackled from the broken lights overhead, jumping from one dangling apparatus to the next in unnaturally slow, swooping arcs. Dean's finger twitched about the trigger as he tried to catch a glimpse of something through the blinding discharges. There was movement to be certain- but there! A shape, a _human _shape, and Dean let his first shot go, followed closely by second, before he checked to see his results. He could not say he was really surprised when the figured continued to advance trough the firing and sparks. Tossing the gun on the ground, he reached back for the revolved on the table and emptied all six of the silver bullets inside at the male figure. This time, he saw the rounds hit the man, but disappear in the fabric of his pale overcoat without even earning a blink from the focused face.

Dean breathed for a moment, brain grasping at straws for what to do. Latin froze on his tongue as he took an unwilling step backwards._ A demon;_ surely it was a demon possessing some sorry bastard. He readied to withdraw the smiting dagger from his waistband but realized in horror that the supposed demon had already stepped on and past the Devil's Trap painted on the cement floor without the slightest hesitation. That wasn't possible. Surely, with all of the flying glass, broken fixtures- _something _had to have scuffed and nulled part of the sigil. Hell, maybe he and Bobby had screwed up when they were drawing it- _this demonic prick is going to die._

He brandished the blade and, with an enraged grunt, stabbed his foe square in the left breast, but instead of sliding into its fleshy organ of destination, Dean recoiled as if he had shoved the knife into a fifty-pound sandbag. He watched with heaving breaths as the far-from-human figure stared down at the hilt in a nearly amused wonder, as if he had just been donned a gold star of achievement without fully understanding what it was. He pulled it from his chest and let it fall to the ground, where it surely clattered loudly, but Dean was still partially deaf to the sound.

As such, he was startled when he heard, through the haze of his hearing loss, and undisturbed, almost brass-like voice say "Dean, we need to talk."

He gave a small scoff before replying. "Yeah. Sure thing."

Be had reached behind and grabbed the wooden stake- dipped in lamb's blood, for extra insurance- and moved to thrust the thing in the stomach, but he had moved four feet to the left. _Shit. He can teleport. _It was't a ghost's teleport either; there was no fuzz or haze to disappear in, or that brief afterimage left behind. True teleportation- just the thing to make killing him even more difficult.

"That's not going to work," the placid voice matched the untroubled face. He didn't look away from Dean either as he blocked the iron rod that was aimed at his head. "Or this either."

Dean let go of the weapon, and this time he could hear the mess of noise as it made contact with the concrete. _That doesn't leave me with many options. _"So you must be Castiel."

Now the stranger's face smiled plainly, as if the fact that Dean knew his name made him proud. "Yes."

Dean, on the other hand, had his frown firmly carved into his face. "So then you're the one who burnt out that poor woman's eyes."

"I…" Castiel sighed, almost remorseful, but moreso disappointedly. "I warned her not to spy on my true form. It can be… overwhelming to most beings."

"Yeah, well, be sure to write that on the "Get Well Soon" card." Dean really was starting to wish he had another weapon in his back pocket. "So who are you exactly then? And what the hell do you want with me?"

"I'm the one who gripped you tight and raised you from perdition."

Dean swallowed nervously, a lost smile finding its way onto his lips despite its inappropriateness. "Yeah, I figured as much. So what, you're some kind of big, immoral demon thing? You're going to make me your little bitch or what?"

It took Castiel a moment to process what Dean had asked, and even then he looked slightly confused. "…no. I'm not a demon in any form. I'm an angel of the Lord."

Any witty retort or angry remark that Dean had readied himself to say died on his lips. His brain tried to regroup, thinking of something else to say, but the ideas he grasped at fell apart in his hands. He gave the guy the once-over, narrowing his gaze as if some new detail would jump out at him and have that sentence fit comfortably in his brain somewhere, rather than where it was currently floating around and crashing into things in one mess of confusion. But no- no halo over his head, no puffy white wings, not even the faintest etheral glow. Nothing about this guy seemed angelic at all.

"I… _what?_"

"I'm an angel of-"

"No, no that's… not what I meant." Dean rubbed his mouth, still struggling to gather up his vocabulary back into one place. "I... but... not _angels_?"

"Yes." He was patient with the processing.

"No…" Dean's mind had finally found something solid- anger. That was better than nothing, so he ran with it. "There's no such thing. You're lying."

Castiel stepped forward at the comment, Dean almost worried that he was going to try and hug him based on the way he raised his arms and kept a docile facial expression. "This is your problem Dean. You have no faith."

"Oh. Oh _I _have no faith?" Dean thrusted his thumb angrily at his own chest. "I know better than anyone about faith. I grew up on stories of demons and poltergeists and shapeshifters, knowing how to kill them before I'd even seen one. I believe in real things. Things I've seen, that others have seen."

"I stand before you now." Castiel offered.

His face twitched a mad grin. "Oh yeah. Right. So where were you angels the last thirty years of my life? Or the last twenty centuries? Why haven't you flown in and saved the thousands of other poor bastards who traded their souls away? Tell me that. Explain to me, how in all of recorded history, none of you have bothered yourselves with our sorry little planet."

His anger seemed to have been anticipated, for Castiel stared unblinkingly at him as he spat the words, and searched his enraged eyes as if he could see Dean's thoughts through the windows. Nonetheless, the supposèd angel looked somewhat unnerved by the accusations. "There have been many incidents recorded, and repeated. The tale of my brother's Gabriel's message to Mary alone has become tra-"

"How about one that _doesn't_ come from the Bible?" Dean tried to tuck away his anger for the moment, smothering it with logic and the prospect of finally getting some answers. "How about something from this millennium?"

Castiel furrowed his brow. "Why?"

"Because it strikes me as a little odd that you haven't shown your faces since crucifixion was in style."

Now Castiel took his gaze away, examining the painted sigils on the ceiling. "There has been no need for any interferences in recent history."

"Oh, so two world wars, genocide, global poverty, famine, terrorism and the threat of nuclear warfare isn't enough for you guys? I'd hate to see what pulled you out of bed back in the day- do we have to flood the entire planet to get an appointment?"

That certainly caught a nerve. "Do not think that we stand idly in difficult times, or that your prayers fall upon deaf ears…"

Dean scoffed. "Sounds like you are trying to hide what isn't there. If angels existed, they'd better not be the ones who stand by and watch innocent people suffer and die."

Dean must have blinked, because Castiel now stood in his wake, an unforgiving expression carved into his face. "We are not omnipotent beings, Dean. Nor are we acting upon impulses or physical desires. We are given commands, and we obey them. Everything happens for a reason."

A noticeable ligature began to tighten around every organ Dean was aware of- a small, testing squeeze, terrifying in the fact that there was a more powerful grip waiting behind it. "So you dragged me out of Hell… because you were told to?"

Castiel nodded.

"By who?"

"I think you know, Dean."

The grasp much have reach Dean's lungs, because he could not breathe for a few horrible moments. "...why?"

"We have work for you."

The phrase latched onto the air as if it had a life of its own, growing heavy with the disease that filled the warehouse, refusing to shrivel up, and demanding attention. But Dean was entrusted with it like some sort of holy rash- he wasn't sure if he should thank the angel for it, ask how to get rid of it, or just ignore it entirely and hope that it would go away on its own.

"What makes me so special? What have I done that makes me worthy of being pulled back into action?"

"You have been deemed the most suitable for the job. Your fate is greater than that of spending eternity in damnation."

"Yeah, well I don't really buy the whole 'the universe cares what happens to Dean Winchester' deal. If you tell me what you are really are what what I am really in for, maybe Ill start listening."

The words were met by a change in Castiel's expression- one of curiosity and slight confusion. His head tilted to one side, eyes narrowing on Dean's with a fixed determinacy that left him feeling extremely exposed. The way his dark eyes flicked across green iris and dilated pupil, examining every whorl and shade with conscious purpose, made him suspect that he was being picked apart and examined.

"What's wrong…?" The question felt undirected, despite there being only one possible addressee. Castiel stared and searched a little longer, until his eyes turned emphatic. The innocent curiosity lingered all the same, as the self-proclaimed angel took a step closer to Dean. "You don't think you deserve to be saved…"

Dean tried to swallow the knot in his throat. It was not a question.

"I sense you are overwhelmed by all of this," Castiel dropped the invasive whisper, returning to the impartial tone, "I will give you some time to think about tonight and what I have told you. I will return to you in a few days."

Watching the tan coat turn away seemed to snap some of the shock off of Dean. "Woah now, I'm not nearly done with you- what 'work' is this that you're taling about? What is it that angels need my help with doing?"

Castiel walked over to Bobby's unresponsive body, feet crackling with every step on the broken glass that littered the floor. He crouched down at his head, touching the bare patch of skin above his brow with his index and middle finger. "All will be answered in time."

"Now you sound like a Magic Eight Ball. 'Try again later' translates to 'I know bullcrap.'" Dean kept talking as he approached from the side, not at all comfortable with whatever he was doing to Bobby- not that he really was in a position to be saying anything about it.

"If you are impatient for answers, I suggest you read the Bible." He returned to his feet cautiously, like a lynx not wanting to startled the sparrow he tracked down from afar. "There are more truths hidden among the verses than you realize."

"Like hell-" Dean's voice fell from his throat before he could even finish the response, words drowned out by a crack of thunder from the spontaneous storm outside of the uninsulated walls.

The biting breeze was not the reason for the chilling cascade down his spine, though. The lightning filled the room from all windows on all sides, chasing away any visible shadows- excepting the two large shapes springing forth from Castiel's shoulders. They rose in the air slightly, _consciously_, in a radial movement of what he could only call feathers, though the word fell dead in his mind, unfit for use, like all other words. It was like the embodiment of an invisible radiance, an unnameable trait, something beyond human perception. Even devoid of light, the impossible, nonexistent glow about them emanating an aura of faint emotion and sensation. Dean could not will himself to look away.

His eyes failed him, and with one blink the wings disappeared, making him wonder if he had imagined them entirely.

With the second blink, Castiel had vanished with what Dean would have impuslively called the sound of a wing stroke. He tried to tell himself it was just some strange noise of Bobby coughing as he regained consciousness.

O-oOo-O

"You're kidding me." Sam Winchester had a skeptical smile on his face, nearly laughing at the suggestion.

"I wish I was." Dean did not share any of his brother's amusement. "Hell, I'd rather have been told that I'm some sort of a mutated, undead, brain-eating zombie. That would at least have made half a lick of sense."

Bobby made an unimpressed noise from the bed of their motel room, still trying to finish the sutures on his glass-torn arms. "I wish I had been awake to see it. He must've been one tough bugger to knock me out."

"Actually, he looked more like he he'd just came from the desk of some middle-class job than the gates of hell."

"You're sure he wasn't just some demon possessing someone?" Sam used that nearly condescending tone, like he was addressing some ignorant housewife he knew was lying about cheating on her husband.

"Of course I'm sure. Walked right over the Devil's Trap, and didn't even flinch when I gutted him with Ruby's knife." Dean returned to the mini-fridge to grab a second bottle of beer, the first one not having done a good job in muting his raw nerves. "Unless there is some freaky new black-eye-free , knife- and trap-proof species, it's definitely not demonic."

There was an elongated pause, almost lasting long enough to be deemed 'awkward'. "So what, you _actually _think it's… some angel?"

Dean's aggravation tempted his muscles to twitch. "I don't know! I saw _wings, _dammit. What else am I supposed to think?"

"We have to entertain the possibility either way," Bobby rationalized, "so we might as well buff up on our angel lore and see if the halo fits."

Dean closed his eyes before he spoke, raising an inquiring finger. "Does that mean that… one of us…"

"Oh no boy. You're the chosen one, so you get to learn your Bible verses. Cover-to-cover."

Sam snorted in his seat, a grin three feet wide across his face.

"You shut up. This means you get double grocery duty." Dean downed the rest of his bottle, trudging over to the bedside table where the black book sat collecting dust. Flicking the thin pages to the title GENESIS, his frown was nearly ironed across his lips.

Sharing amused glances, Bobby and Sam gave a collected inhale.

"And I swear, the first one to make a "Touched by an Angel" reference will have their ass kicked back to Kansas."

O-oOo-O

Whenever Dean was faced with more than three consecutive days of "weird-thing-research", he always was reminded of why going to college was never an option for him. After six days of flipping through any text with even a mention of angels, he was more than ready to just decapitate a few vamps, or go on some big bloody, adrenaline-pushing hunt. As such, he was more than willing to help Bobby check up on an unresponsive hunter, if it did look to be just some generic vengeful spirit.

He never really would have guess that he'd _miss_ the books when he discovered that the spirits were apparently user-specific, and intent to exploit every emotionally weak point someone had. Dean was facing enough instability - emotional and mental - _without _being reminded of the countless people he had failed, and now were dead because of him.

Finding out that the entire mess was known as "The Rising of the Witnesses", and was a Bible-approved method of starting the Apocalypse was almost was like someone twisting in arsenic to the already disgusting plethora of drinks in his force-fed tanker of mixed liquors. Despite managing to wrestle the situation mere inches from disaster, he couldn't help but feel the noxious liquid churning and consuming his insides.

At least it wasn't as if getting enough sleep had ever really worked for Dean. He had laid on the floor at Bobby's place numerous times since he was a kid. Or, rather, since he was younger. Back then, he would try and count the cracks and spirals in the wood ceiling boards when he couldn't sleep, like hunter's sheep jumping over his head.

Except now, when he stared at the ceiling with sunken eyes, there was red in his peripherals, his limbs heavy and seemingly immobile, skin almost able to feel the ligatures around his wrists, ankles, chest, neck, straining from all sides as he tried to avoid the knives, the nails, the syringes, the teeth, the ropes, the spikes, and the nameless tools- the ones he could identify and classify by the instinctual, unique terror that would seize in his muscles whenever he saw each one, or heard the metallic scraping and sharpening…

A deafening bursting in his ears - his heartbeat, he realized - and suddenly, Dean knew he wasn't alone. The world's hues had returned to normal, and he was back on the nondescript floor, knuckles clenched to white. He drew himself upright and felt his eyes pulled to the kitchen by the weight of the shadow standing pensively against the darkened window.

"Hello Dean." The voice was no more a whisper than it had been in the warehouse, but to his left Sam showed no signs of stirring from the couch. Dean really did not see the point in waking him either- a sense of "properness" seemed to think it a bad idea. He kept his voice low.

"Where have you been? A little bit of angelic help would've been useful a few hours ago."

Castiel made no move to come closer, but instead waited a long time before responding to the question. "You are not my sole priority. Do not overestimate your importance in the scheme of things now. There were other matters to attend."

"Yeah, I'm sure. Tell my, did any of them need more attention than an _apocalyptic threat_?"

Dean wished that the human-like form reacted a little more human-like, for he would have loved to try and read the angel's reaction to his remark. Instead, the blue eyes buried themselves deeper into his own. "What do you know about the Apocalypse?"

_Bastard. _"Sure as hell not enough. You knew about this? And you didn't think to maybe give me a heads-up? That's kind of an important detail."

"The coming of Armageddon has been prophesied in Revelations for many centuries now. _'They shall hunger no more, neither thirst no more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat.' 'And in those days shall men seek death and shall not find it; and shall deserve to die, and death shall flee from them.'_"

Dean did not expect any other response, but nonetheless the confirmation spurred him forward in an angry flourish of panic. "So you are going to just stand around and let the world come to an end just because some book said it was true? Is this what you sprung me out of Hell for?"

This time, the face was at least partially contorted with some emotion - either confusion or irritation, Dean guessed. "Nothing is so simple or clear. Your Bible has many errors and misinterpreted messages, and the years have made no help in improving them. We have always known the way that the Apocalypse would come about but… it is has been left shrouded in mystery and darkness even to us."

Dean's hand waved about in its normal manner of accusation. "So the God Squad has known about this for so many centuries, and none of you ever thought maybe to ask higher up on the food chain about it?"

"There is a difference between being kept in the dark and simply refusing to turn on the lights." Ice froze over the angel's gaze. "Do not think of us as ignorant when you have lived barely long enough to rectify your existence."

Their tableau remained unchanged.

"There are many angels, Dean. More than the ones that your Bible has named: enough to watch over all life and still have others waiting in line. Out of them all, only four have ever seen God's face. Since the dawn of creation, only four have been so blessed."

"So you follow the orders given to you by someone who you've never even seen?"

"You seem, once again, unfamiliar with the concept of faith."

The few moments it took for Dean to find his response angered him just as much as the comment he was trying to refute. "I'll start believing in stuff as soon as I get a couple of good answers around here. Cut the mystic mumbo-jumbo and tell me where we stand in terms of the world coming to an end."

Castiel looked upwards, as if the heavens had his response written and shining through the roof and ceiling joists. "The Rising of the Witnesses is one of many seals that must be broken. Sixty-six, in total, and the Apocalypse will begin to reshape the Earth as you know it."

"_Seals_?" Dean tried to spin different meanings and logic on the word. "What seals?"

"Consider them like locks on the door. They were created by God himself, and now these evil forces wish to break the sixty-six they need."

"How many are there in total that they can break?"

"Several hundred. Protecting them is our first priority now - once the witnesses had risen, this seal was lost to us and our efforts futile."

"Okay, so sixty-six locks. What's behind the door once they break the last one?"

Castiel turned back to Dean, eyes expressing a sober distress of graveness. "Lucifer."

Dean wondered how long his hearbeat stalled before it managed to kick its processes out of their petrification. "As in… the _Devil _Lucifer?"

"You also know him as Satan," he added sadly. "He was once my brother, fallen from grace, and now seeking to mutilate the world to his own pleasure."

His face spoke with a stoic apathy, but his eyes threatened to betray him otherwise. _A lost brother. _Dean shifted in place uncomfortably. "That's not going to happen. Not on my watch."

"Far too much is at state to let such anarchy descend upon the world. This is why you have been brought back."

For some reason, the addition of 'back' on the phrase create a slight nauseous pressure in Dean's brain. "Do you think that I know more about the Apocalypse than all of you? Or that I'm so powerful and useful? Why pick me, of all people?"

It was here that Castiel began to walk towards Dean, face almost pitying of the mortal's words. "It is difficult to look at your importance in the midst of all this chaos, but you must simply take our word for it now."

Now that the angel was in such close proximity to Dean - definitely past his comfort zone for strangers - he felt incapable of throwing up his wall of sarcasm to shield himself. "Look here, I don't know whether you are asking me to believe in God or myself, but I... I'm not really willing to do either."

The frown on Castiel's face was so simple and clean it was impossible to read. He stood in the brief silence floating between them, eyes unblinking in what he could only akin to pity. "I'm… sorry to hear that."

Dean's lips twitched. _It's a shame sorry doesn't help. _"I want to know more about these seals - how many are left? How can we protect them?"

But Dean's eyes dilated as they adjusted to the darker room, Castiel's instantaneous disappearance occurring sometime after Dean had started to question again. _Apparently this guy is not only incapable of straight answers, but prone to just avoid the ones he doesn't like entirely._

His intuition, though, told him that Castiel would more than likely show up the next time Dean was "needed"… it was just a matter of where and when.

Dean hated surprises.


End file.
